The problem of genetic haplotyping of individuals and groups has existed since the study of molecular genetics began. Prior approaches of molecular haplotyping include physically separating the parental chromosomal segments followed by genotyping the isolated (and amplified) chromosomal segments, and analyzing individual DNA molecules.
DNA mapping is an important analytical tool in genomic sequence assembly, medical diagnostics, and pathogen identification. The current strategy for DNA mapping is based on sizing DNA fragments generated by enzymatic digestion of genomic DNA with restriction endonucleases. More recently, the DNA molecular combing and optical mapping techniques have been developed to interrogate multiple sequence sites on single DNA molecules deposited on a glass surface.